A Return to Glory
by P. Witzchildra
Summary: This story is based upon the Vampire: Masquerade rpg system. My first story, please no flaming. Hope you enjoy it


Prelude  
The Watchful Eye

_Drip…drip…drip…_

The distant echoes stabbed through the unending darkness like a knife. Mocking the time once kept by the hearts of long departed souls that are the incarnations of our greatest nightmares…our very desires.

Sargon shivered visibly. Not from cold, for his nervous system, frozen in death no longer held the power to entertain such a sensation. These catacomb-like passages were once the halls of a magnificent Babylonian palace. Once, they had contained nobles, cheerful in their temporal status, but no more. Now buried under the ruins of a formerly picturesque city of might, is an evil so powerful and ancient its very existence permeated the walls of its lair with a bone-chilling ambience.

There was no light in these tomb-like ruins, but given the occupant, light was unnecessary. Sargon wrinkled his nose at the musty smell of decay that clung lightly to the air with a perseverance not even his iron-will could banish. _No matter, at least I survive to walk these halls._ This was the mantra repeated endlessly in his mind while in this place. Sargon stopped his habitually harried pace leaving only the incessant dripping noise to hold the shroud-like silence at bay. Gazing into the corner he smiled at the passage's only adornment. From the dust encrusted mirror gazed a stately, sallow man of about forty years of age. His grey streaked golden blonde hair was slicked back to reveal a slightly wrinkled brow. Despite the hard set to his jaw and scar that ran from the bridge of his nose across his left cheek, his face gave the appearance of a kindly middle-aged man, or would've had it not been for his eyes. Stormy grey orbs that held the look of purest hate held in check only by iron-will and necessity. He was a tall man, towering at six feet, eight inches. His body build much akin to that of a brick-wall. Even his out-of-place business suit and overcoat had an aura of majesty to it. But Sargon knew these trappings of men, mortal and immortal were but pathetic excuses to his master's dark omnipotence.

Snapping out of his introspection, Sargon rounded the corner and continued his journey into the inner sanctum of his master's lair. Despite the chaotic winding of his path, Sargon walked with a confidence only long years of practice could forge. "Won't be long now…" thought Sargon when he stopped briefly before a stairwell leading down in nothingness… the bowels of Hell itself.

Seemingly ages later Sargon marched away from the winding stairwell to be greeted with the sight of a monstrous room. Constructed in Goth high fashion, the room's cultural clash with the rest of the ruins was somehow befitting to its sinister nature. Massive buttressed columns lined the walls, vaulting so high that even to his mystic, undead eyes the ceiling was cloaked in darkness. Sargon smirked as he walked onward toward the center of the room, remembering his former anxiety at the gargoyles which gazed down at him with a menacing air. He chuckled at himself for being so foolish, though his mirth was cut short when he glanced at one of the grotesque beasts. His pace quickened when the room's center came into sight.

Before him the room widened out allowing for a circular depression in its center, the columns surrounding it like silent sentinels guarding this sinister, unholy shrine of power. Stepping under one of the giant arches between the columns, Sargon gazed down at the mosaic of a black wheel with thirteen spokes. He tired to fight down the rising fear at the sight of the symbol. The wheel, its black form twisted as if diseased, with symbols at each of the spokes. Seven of them he recognized, the other six meant nothing to him, but he knew that there was equal power in all. Legend had it that when Caine, Father of Vampires awoke, all thirteen of these wheels would alight and the end of all he had come to know would be nigh. Before he had been called into the service of his master, he had not believed a word of those legends, now they were the doctrines that directed his every move.

Gathering his will, Sargon straightened his back so as to gain every inch of height his body had to offer. Stepping with stately majesty only one of considerable political power can have, Sargon made his way to the center of the mosaic. Arriving quickly to at the center Sargon dropped to his knees, as much out of ritual requirement as physical capability. Here the taint of this place's evil pulsed painfully within his very bones.

_"So…my faithful pet finally decides to pay his master a visit…How nice to see you again, Sargon." _The disembodied voice came from seemingly nowhere, echoing out of the darkness like a snake prowling through dead leaves. The feigned softness of the voice served only to send a quiver of fear down Sargon's spine. _"And what news have you for me?"_

Sargon spoke quickly, knowing that only speed and efficiency was acceptable. "Master, all but one of your pawns is in place and there's not the slightest notion that anything is wrong. However…there is one problem…"

_"Miserable fool!" _The disembodied voice cut him off, the feigned softness giving way to a rising storm of awesome ferocity. _"Hundreds of years of manipulation and planning have gone into this and you mean to tell me that because of your... incompetence there is a problem?"_

"A minor set-back master, his name is Alebard Krushinsky. A Prince to the city of Los Angeles. B-but he is easily removed master. He shall pose no danger to your plan." Sargon raced through the last, hoping to save him from what he knew to be inevitable. He quivered in fear from what was to come next.

_"See that it doesn't…however, as incentive to keep you from failure…" _Sargon screamed as he fell to the floor writhing in agony as an unseen tormentor set fire to his very bones. His body flailed about wildly, thrashing in vain to bring an end to the pain. _"I have waited three thousand years to ascend once more to power that is rightfully mine. I shall not have some sniveling child ruin that for me." _The pain stopped as suddenly as it came, and all Sargon could do was lie on stomach and gasp for breathe, like a fish out of water.

"_Now go…see to it you do not fail me again…"_


End file.
